The Whippoorwill Chapter 1 The Alcove
by Xiomara Jones
Summary: Mark Brannigan is brilliant, beautiful and richer than Midas, but he is an empty man. He has fallen ridiculously in love with Viva, his employee, his star, his everything. Mark is married and his wife is pregnant. What now?
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: **

**When I started writing this book the questions in my mind were: Is love with a married man, or someone who is unavailable, more intense? Is that a doomed relationship? Does it always end badly? **

**I wondered…. what if that love is so strong and so destined that fate will eventually bring them together?**

**Explore the tale of Mark and Viva and find out….**

**I hope you enjoy this story. Please share your thoughts with me.**

**Love,**

**Xiomara (pronounced zee-oh-mar-uh)**

**I am working on more stories on my blog, Contemplating Eden: the quest for love**

**Contemplatingeden dot blogspot dot com**

_**1. The Alcove**_

Monday came, not all too soon. The weekend had been agony for Mark,

for it had brought him an epiphany. He was truly, madly, deeply in love.

Mark delighted in just being in the same space as Viva, but she avoided

him, smiled pleasantly, spoke only what was required of her and no more. He

owned the company, he was her boss, but he could no more impose his presence

on her than he could make rain in the desert.

He was desperate to talk to her, to share, to analyze this new found

devouring need he recently discovered he had . His eyes pleaded with her. He left a

funny card in her purse, coffee at her desk. He even risked sending her roses, as peach

as her soft lips. His eyes were hollow from lack of sleep, his hands shook as he

fumbled with the antacids he constantly popped in his mouth.

Viva had had the same epiphany as Mark, and was winded by the avalanche of

her emotions as well. She fought each minute of the day to function with some

semblance of sanity. Her cheeks hurt from trying not to cry, not to smile. Each day of

that week was a battle that seemed unending. As she walked out through the revolving

glass door of San Francisco's Embarcadero Center on Friday, her throat was parched,

and her gut felt like a prize fighter's punching bag. She walked dazedly through the

Financial District and headed toward North Beach, the city's Italian section. With small

steps she climbed the hill on Vallejo Street where she lived. She was only twenty three

years old, and her image on a car window parked on the street validated her looks. She

was the epitome of the young upwardly mobile professional of the eighties. Viva was

decked out in a chocolate colored suit with a matching coat. A man walking downhill

past her glanced at her curiously. In spite of her blatant youth, her heavy steps

and her hunched shoulders made her seem like an old lady. Viva avoided his gaze and

stared at the pavement instead. She let out a long sigh of relief as she neared her flat.

She had survived this rollercoaster week after all.

Viva's steps were slow as she fumbled for her house keys in her Gucci purse.

Finding them, she closed her purse and looked up toward the marbled steps leading to

her Victorian flat painted in birthday cake colors. Her eyes widened slightly as she

looked up. It was a moment before she found her voice. "Mark!" she said quietly.

He sat there, just looking at her. Viva knew she should turn and walk away,

but her feet were riveted to the sidewalk. She kept staring at him, in her mind,

caressing the cheek forbidden to her.

"Just let me look at you Viva. You don't have to say anything, just

let me look at you without having to explain it to anyone." He raked a hand through

his sun kissed hair. "Jeezuz!!" He pinched the bridge of his brow with his thumb and

forefinger. Shutting his eyes tightly, his tone was defeated, "I die when you're not

around, I see your face when I close my eyes, I see you everywhere, in everything…"

Viva ascended the stairs and sat with him. She laid her forehead on his

shoulder, her root beer colored hair falling across her face like a silken curtain A tear

dropped onto his sleeve. His arm gently enfolded her and with an aching tenderness,

he stroked the tresses that fell just below her jaw , "I love you Viva," he whispered.

They sat for a long time before Mark lifted her chin with his finger and kissed

her gently. He kissed her eyelids, her nose, the dimple beside her lips. She felt his

passion deepen. Tentatively, he traced the outside of her breasts. Viva drew a sharp

breath. His tongue parted her lips. He explored every hollow of her mouth.

Unbuttoning her coat, he drew his hands to her warmth. His kisses trailed down to

her neck. He felt her racing pulse in the hollow beneath her ear.

Viva was on a spiral going upward. She unbuttoned her silk blouse and

boldly placed Mark's hand on her heaving breasts. "Viva…my…love…" he cooed,

as he freed her breasts from their lacy confines. He lightly palmed her nipples and they

pebbled with pleasure. His mouth came down and replaced his hands. He laved and

suckled, teased with his teeth until she thought she would burst.

Mark's head came up abruptly and he drew a large gulp of air. "I can't hold on

much longer my love," he said breathlessly. She already felt bereft, as he wrenched his

mouth from her. Awakening from her passionate daze, she surveyed where they sat.

Good God! They had almost made love on the front step. Drawing her coat tightly

around her, she grabbed her keys and stood up. Weak at the knees, Viva quickly

stepped to the door and jammed the key into the brassy lock.

"Come inside," she said not looking at him. She sensed his hesitation and

peeked sideways at him through the cascade of her short bobbed hair. He was trying to

look at his watch.

"Viva, I wish I could, but my parents are coming into town for dinner tonight,"

Mark said dejectedly. It sounded like an excuse and he knew it.

Viva's heart sank. So this is how it would be! Dammit! She shoved the door

open and tried to get inside, fast. Mark held her arm in a steel-like grip, "No Viva! I

know I have no right to be with you. I know that! Don't you know how much torture I

have been through this week!?" Viva tried to shrug her arm from him.

"What about me? I'm supposed to just stand here and accept this?" Viva let her

gaze linger on his quivering lips still warm from her kisses. She hated herself for

wanting more. "I came here just to see you, nothing else." Mark replied.

"I could not face another day not having my fill of just looking at you. I did not intend

to hold you, just as I did not seek to fall in love with you. Don't you know it's almost

killing me to know that I cannot have you? I want to wake up with you, I want your

smile to be the last thing I see before I fall asleep. "

His jaw clamped and a muscle worked on his cheek. "I do not love Robin,

Viva. At least I know now that I have never loved anyone before you. I wish to God

that I could just walk away from my wife and be with you. I wish we could just ride

into the sunset and live happily ever after. But I'm not such a cad that I would walk

away from a pregnant woman because I don't love her!" He pulled Viva to him,

cupping her face in his hands, stroking her cheek with his thumb. "No, the timing is

not right, but that doesn't mean that we can't fix it later."

"Who the hell do you think you are?" Viva hissed. In her heart, she did not

feel these awful , hateful words. "I have come too far to become your mistress….your

FUCKING whore!"

Mark flinched at her accusation. She was right. He could not ask her to be

patient and wait for his life to be set aright.

"Is this what you really want?" he asked, a silent plea in his eyes.

"I don't know, Mark…" she said, exhaling deeply as she spoke.

"I want to stay here all night, all day, and the next and the next…to sort this out.

I want you to have no doubts. I want to make you feel safe and happy, no matter how

long it takes. But right now, I have to go." His last words were more sighed than

spoken.

"Sure," she said sarcastically, "Kiss me, tell me you love me, how much you

want to make me happy…then, gotta go Viva!" She yanked harder this time and freed

her arm from him. He caught her again and this time held her with both hands.

"Damn you!" he screamed and forced her to him. Viva stood rigidly. "Please

Viva. Can we reason this out? Think this out?" He released her slightly and searched

her eyes. She wouldn't look at him. Whichever way she turned, he moved his face in

in front of her. He wiggled his eyebrows, crossed his eyes, he rolled his head backward

like a limp doll, and finally, Viva burst out with an unwilling laugh.

"You need serious therapy Mark!" she said, grinning at him.

"Does that mean we can talk about this some more?" he asked, like a child

begging for a second helping of ice cream.

"Maybe…"she said coyly.

Cocooned in the marbled alcove beyond the steps, facing Viva by the beveled

glass door to her flat, Mark's eyes grew solemn. "Viva, if I have to face another day

without you, I think I will die. Nothing matters without you. You may not want to wait

around until my life is straightened out, but I will not let you go." He drew her in his

arms again and held her with a ragged sigh. He kissed her hair, her face. She kissed his

neck and his chest through his crisp shirt. His hands roamed over her breasts, caressed

her back. He fitted her between his thighs and pressed his bulging manhood to her

belly. He cupped her buttocks and kneaded them hungrily. Hiking her wool skirt up,

he thrust his thigh between her legs and let her ride him. With trembling fingers he

massaged the pearl of her pleasure and she grew dizzy with desire. Their relentless

kisses touched every surface they could reach of each other bodies. It had never been

like this for either one. Viva unzipped his pants and slipped her hand inside.

Hesitatingly, she touched him. He had grown enormous.

Mark was wild with desire and desperate for release. He slipped inside the

elastic of her wet bikini panties and slid his finger up her sheath. "Ohhhh," she

moaned. It was the siren's song to his ears.

"You're so wet for me my love," his tongue flicked her ear. "Not here, not

now, not like this. I want our first time to be unforgettable. All I want at this moment

is to send you over and watch your beautiful face."

Her hand withdrew from the confines of his pants as he increased the ardor with

which he stroked her. With his left hand, he held her to keep her from falling. His

right hand continued that rhythm that simulated another kind of loving. He watched her

closely as she reached that blissful oblivion and sagged against his hands. There was

marvel on her face as she climaxed. She had never known one. She didn't expect it.

"Oh Mark…Oh Mark…" she said in short gasps. "I never….I never…"

"Hush…..shhshhhhhh." He kissed the hollow of her neck. "There will be many

more. It can only get better."

"What about you?" Viva's hand reached down to him. The hardness was still

there. Unbuckling his belt, she freed him. The look on her face hovered between awe

and curiosity. She ran her fingers like butterflies around the smooth, rigid column that

hung between them. Mark watched her face as she explored him. He enclosed her

hands with his and tightened her grip around him. Tightfistedly, she drew his throbbing

shaft toward her, then back to him. Again,and again.

"Not here…Vivahhhhh!" he pleaded.

"Yes, here Mark!" She smiled instinctively, sure of her power over him.

Her one touch could have sent him over. He was surprised he lasted more than

a dozen of her strokes. Mark had had his share of lovers, but none had Viva's power to

catapult him over an endless sky. He pulled her panties halfway down her thighs,

intending to take her then. "VIVA! My Viva…." He groaned as he spilled his seed

over her curly nest, her thighs and those impossibly pink lace bikinis. "I c-c-can't

begin to tell you…"

"Don't…"Viva hid her face on his crisp, white shirt and inhaled his aftershave.

"Will you see me tomorrow…..please, Viva?" He was prepared for her refusal.

She didn't answer at once. She was lying to herself. If she said no, and he

showed up, she knew she would go anywhere with him. If she said no and he didn't

come around, she'd be crying all weekend. Viva gave Mark a dazzling smile that lit

her eyes and said, "Maybe!"

Mark understood. A weight lifted from his chest. He was whistling as he drove

off. He would see her tomorrow.

As Viva closed the door, she leaned against it. She was happy one minute, then

doubtful the next. So this was how it was going to be.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note:**

**Here's a glimpse of Viva's past…her roots in Steinbeck country, the Salinas Valley of California. **

**Would appreciate your comments.**

**Love,**

**Xiomara**

_**2. Go-Go Boots, Fishnet Stockings and White Lipstick**_

"VIVEEECCAHHHHHH !!!!!!" Her mother screeched from the shanty's

kitchen door. The sagging frame met the top step and stuck, bits of oily dust powdering

the air. Viveca glanced briefly toward the sound, but chose to run in the opposite

direction, down the pitted asphalt street toward the railroad tracks. She knew that

her mother had found the money missing from the tin can in the kitchen - that

rusted old thing that carefully hoarded every penny and other smelly coins that they

could stash away. It wasn't as if she had taken millions, Dios mio! It had

only been two lousy dollars!

Viveca slowed down as the stabbing pain in her side cut the air from her lungs,

panting, she absently kicked at weeds and stones as she came across them. Picking her

way around an old mattress with its springs bulging out, she hurdled a few frames that

might have been chairs at one time. Ahead, at the far end of this archaeological tribute

to modern trash, she spied her favorite hideout, a rusted, skeletal Chevy. Plopping

heavily on the ground beside it, she let out a whoosh from her moued lips. She would

face her mother later.

Gingerly, Viveca unbuttoned her frayed flannel shirt and reverently slipped out

of it the latest issue of Vogue magazine. Whatever her mother was going to do to her

when she came home would be worth it to have this! Light bounced off the cover, a

neon pink, framing a fashionable, up to the minute Go-Go girl, enticingly posed. The

words didn't catch her eye so much as the perfect blonde. Short, pouffy "do" with

straight bangs, white lipstick, heavily blackened eyes. To Viveca's mind, this was a

goddess.

Viveca twirled her mousy locks around her finger. She was all wrong. Her

tresses were too dark, her skin and eyes too brown and dull. As she slowly turned each

page, her wish for flaxened hair and cornflower eyes became desperate.

A twelve year old girl believes the glitz and glamour that an ad promises. It is

the instant panacea for the aching lack in Viveca's day-to-day existence. When she

buys these products and looks like the models on the page, life will be good. Viveca

devoured each picture and each word voraciously, making sacred each letter and each

scene.

In the soft twilight, Viveca made her way home. Smells of frying oil, the

cadence of Spanish words, the quieting of the day reached her senses in snippets. As

she drew closer to the kitchen door, she heard her sister singing to the transistor radio.

Two steps into the chipped linoleum floor and her head snapped sharply to the right.

Her mother's slap reverberated in her ears. "Demonia!!" her mother Josefa growled.

"What did you do with that money?" Josefa grabbed a fistful of Viveca's hair

and yanked it toward her fleshy face. Viveca inhaled the smell of cheap whiskey and

felt strands of hair lift off her scalp. She coolly eyed Josefa but did not utter a sound.

"Puta!" (Whore!) Josefa's fury began anew, as she let go of Viveca's hair and

slapped her once more. With that force, Viveca stumbled and her magazine clattered to

the floor.

"THIS!? This is what you have the stupidity to buy? You would rather go

without food for your family to have this…this trash?" Josefa snatched up the

magazine and tore off what she could. With a pitiful wail, Viveca tried to grab it from

her. Josefa twisted the pages filled with pictures of dreams, and lit them from the

flames on the stove. Her fist was shaking as she held the burning bundle, the neon pink

of its cover peeking here and there. She eyed Viveca with drunken rage. The hardship

and disappointments of her life were mirrored in Josefa's rheumy eyes.

"This was your supper…" Josefa hissed as she threw the scorched pages on the

floor. With a keening sound, Viveca lunged and stamped on the flames. It was too

late, the ashes scattered. Josefa moved to grab her again but Viveca was faster. She

blocked the heavy arm and stared at her mother defiantly. With jutted chin, Viveca

swung Josefa's arm away. Turning, she bolted out the door. On the transistor radio,

the Turtles were singing, "So happy together….."

Viveca's eyes stung, then were blurry with tears. She would not cry. SHE

WOULD NOT CRY! But the tears ran down her cheeks unchecked, then turned into

sobs. Half running to nowhere, she ducked behind a tree and was hidden by shadows.

Resting her back on the trunk, she tilted her face up to the starlit night.

"That BITCH!" she spat venomously. Her mother was drunk again as usual.

The whiskey made her mean. Viveca knew that she had not taken her family's food

money, but her mother's liquor fund. Somewhere, crickets chirped, peals of male

laughter and mariachi music pierced the cool evening. Viveca slid down the tree's

trunk and held her head on bent knees. She closed her eyes, for she was suddenly tired.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note: This is the rest of Viva's story, the young girl who wanted more….**

**Enjoy!**

**Love,**

**Xiomara**

**Follow me on Twitter!**

* * *

_**3. The Unforgiving Sun**_

Viveca Martinez had seven brothers and four sisters. Her parents moved from

farm to dusty farm picking crops in the Salinas Valley of California. There had been

no time for hopscotch in her childhood. Her earliest memories were of chilly mornings,

rising before the dawn, to harvest yet another kind of fruit. They lived in shanties

provided for "their kind," dirt floors and walls with holes where the wind whistled

through. Sometimes, they slept in the ancient bus that her father used to haul their

family and few possessions. They all worked at their backbreaking tasks, yet the money

they had made was never enough.

Viva, the name she was called, was short for Viveca, a name she could not

pronounce as a toddler. Later, she did not care for her birth name, as she did not

care for the labor that sunburned her tender ears. The sun was unforgiving as

she toiled all day long in the fields.

First, she dreamed of simply staying in just one place. There were too many

days of awakening in the midst of new faces. Her family settled down in the vineyards

of Salinas that offered her father a year-long job. Then, Viva yearned to belong, to go

to the town school and live in a house with a picket fence.

At times, they had ridden to town with their father. She had seen the neat

streets lined with clipped lawns, rosy cheeked children playing on swings, clean little

dresses with sashes tied in a bow at the back. She noted from her reflection on the

bus window that her face was brown, and the thin shirt she wore was streaked with dirt.

In her senior year of high school, Viva's art teacher happened upon a

sketchbook she left in class. It was full of her fantasies and naked ambition. The

sketches of the gowns had impressed him. He read and understood her desperation to

transcend the confines of her current life.

Tip-toeing into Mr. Guerrero's classroom after school, Viva found

him engrossed in the pages of her sketchbook with his back turned toward the door.

Viva stood there in the middle of the room not daring to make a sound, not daring to

come any closer to him. She wanted to grab the sketches from him and run.

Mr. Guerrero sighed and swiveled his chair around. He was surprised to find

Viva standing there. She looked like a doe caught in a car's headlights. She didn't

speak. He eyed her thoughtfully for a few seconds before he said, "These are amazing

Viveca. I had no idea you were interested in fashion design. Actually, I should have

guessed. You've always dressed differently from the other girls." He let his gaze travel

from her face to her feet, as if seeing her for the first time. She looked like a debutante,

instead of the farm girl that she was. She wore a simple shift. It was a mocha color,

well cut. He suspected it was linen. What he didn't know was that she had sewn it

herself.

Viva was not used to talking about what she wanted or dreamed about. She

vacillated between the urge to gush on about her aspirations and the urge to flee in

embarrassment. Unsure of how to reply, she stayed silent. There was a sudden sting

of tears in her eyes. She blinked rapidly to make them go away. Mr. Guerrero's

kindly tone and interest was an alien experience.

Sensing her hesitation, the teacher continued, "What do you plan to do after

High School Viveca?"

Her throat constricted and the words would not come. She had held on to

dreams for so long, held them so close to heart that she could not begin to explain

what they were all about. The tears spilled then, in humiliating torrents. She wiped at

them with the backs of her hands. Her vision blurred, she reached for her sketchbook

Her throat constricted and the words would not come. Her vision blurred, she reached

for her sketchbook intending to run out of there before Mr. Guerrero started laughing at

her.

He laid a hand on her shoulder and spoke in an even softer and kinder voice,

"Viveca, it's okay. You don't have to answer my question. When you do decide that

you would like to answer it, I will be here."

Perhaps it was because he looked like a grandfather in a story book or that

his voice was like a hand stroking her hair. Viva unleashed the tightly bound dream as

if it had been a burden bending her back. She sank on the nearby stool and covered her

face with her hands, tears on top of sobs wracking her thin shoulders. Mr. Guerrero

said nothing, simply laid a hand on her head.

Spent, ashamed, she rose to leave again. He stood there, watching this

beautiful and talented young woman, knowing her pain, remembering his own

ambition to become more. Mr. Guerrero let her go.

A few steps before the door, Viva halted and turned. She was trying to

decide, the push and pull of taking this man into her dream mirrored on her face.

Her voice came as a squeak, "I…I want…" she tried again, "I need to get out of here.

I….I….mean…I want, I need to be somebody. Not just someone's wife, or work in

the fields like everybody." There, she said it. She had never said it aloud to anyone

before. He could laugh if he wanted to. She didn't care!

"Your sketches were good Viveca. Your work in my class showed creativity…

but what I saw in your book, that's your true gift."

"I don't know how to go about doing it…I mean, I know I have to go to school,

or go to New York and be discovered or something. I've been saving money. I've

written to some schools, but it costs too much. I have to work a while to save enough

money to go to ….OH! I'll get there someday! As soon as I graduate from this place,

I am going to buy a bus ticket and move to San Francisco or L.A. I'll get a job being

a maid or a babysitter…and I'll go to school at night." Her words ran together and she

talking so fast that he probably thought she was an idiot.

Mr. Guerrero smiled. The winkles on his face were, at once, rearranged.

"You know Viveca, I was not always a teacher. I worked on the farms just like

the people around here…and like you, I knew there was more to life than picking

fruit and moving from place to place. It took me a long time too, but I studied and

became what I am now. I understand."

Viva smiled back. Mr. Guerrero couldn't recall ever seeing her smile before.

"Tell me where you decide you want to go and I will try to help you find a school,

or someone to help you settle in, okay?"

It was the beginning of a long friendship between the old man and this young

woman. He became the family she craved. He was the only one to attend and cheer

her on at her High School graduation. Mr. Guerrero helped her obtain her legal

status in the U.S., helped her obtain a scholarship to a design school in Los Angeles.

He wrote to friends who took Viva into their lives and their home. Viva worked even

harder than before. At night, she tackled her school work with a vengeance. During

the day, she cleaned the homes of the wealthy. She studied how the moneyed women in

L.A. spoke, how they walked. Between cleaning toilets and sketching, she practiced

until the ways of the Haute Monde became second nature to her.

In Los Angeles, Viveca Martinez became Viva Martin, legally. She shed the

cocoon of her barefoot childhood and severed all ties with her family. They thought

she was "loca," crazy, to leave their midst and to pursue something at which she would

never succeed.


End file.
